The present invention relates generally to fare management systems, and more particularly, to constructing large numbers of travel fares.
Published fares describe the price of travel, such as for airline travel, between two specified cities. In the airline industry, published fares are filed by each airline carrier for publication by ATPCO (Airline Tariff Publishing Company). The origin and destination cities for a published fare are referred to herein as xe2x80x9cgateway cities.xe2x80x9d The origin city for a published fare is known as an xe2x80x9corigin gateway cityxe2x80x9d and the destination city for a published fare is known as a xe2x80x9cdestination gateway city.xe2x80x9d
However, travel carriers are not required to file for publication a fare that describes every conceivable travel characteristic for travel between all cities that a particular carrier serves. Rather, industry rules provide for the construction of fares without requiring publication of the fares for each possible combination of cities for which each carrier provides fares.
Accordingly, each travel carrier typically files for publication those fares for travel between that carrier""s major hubs and between certain major airports. Each travel carrier further files arbitrary fares that describe fare enhancements for travel between certain cities. An arbitrary fare component is not meant as a standalone fare. Arbitrary fare components are filed by each carrier to provide a premium or discount as the case may be for a particular category of service for a particular set of travel fare connection points.
Therefore, in order to obtain information about all possible travel fares for travel with a certain carrier between two cities, fares must be constructed using that carrier""s published fares and arbitrary fares. The rules for construction are known in the travel industry. ATPCO sets the rules as to how fares can be constructed for the airline industry.
Constructing fares is a complex process that involves sophisticated combinatorial, and subsequent validation and elimination, requirements. Fares are constructed by assembling all of the possible different valid combinations of specified published fare components and arbitrary fare components that apply to travel between two cities. Hereinafter, references to published fares in the context of combining published fares with arbitrary fares and references to published fare components should be understood to mean specified published fare components.
To construct a fare, one or more arbitrary fare components are combined, in accordance with industry standard rules for combination, with a published fare component to describe the price for the specified carrier between two cities. Because arbitrary fare components enhance a published fare, arbitrary fare components can be positive, negative or zero.
In addition to being a highly complex process, the number of possible combinations of fare components has historically been viewed as a resource-consuming problem. As of Oct. 1, 1998, nearly 1.5 million arbitrary fares had been filed and over 7 million specified fares had been published.
The way in which systems have typically analyzed and processed the information described herein have been to rely on brute-force techniques such as xe2x80x9csortingxe2x80x9d to build all of the possible combinations and perform all of the possible comparisons. Typically, such systems have used sorting to accomplish the elimination and consolidation steps. Because of the large number of fare components, brute-force systems, such as those that rely on sorting, require extensive computing power and time to provide up-to-date, usable constructed and published fares. Consequently, in brute-force systems, updates to fare information are not necessarily reflected in constructed fare information in a timely manner. A more efficient approach is needed which uses less resources and which provides up-to-date constructed fare information within a reasonable response time.
As the traffic or business patterns change, the list of markets for which fares are constructed also change. In addition, it is desirable to provide the capability to construct fares for a complex network of market-to-market requirements such as is required by a pricing analyst for an airline. Typically, a pricing analyst is responsible for all markets connecting two geographical regions, such as two countries. The services mentioned above would require extended computing time to construct all valid fares for travel between, e.g., the United States and Germany on an ad hoc basis.
According to the present invention, apparatus, systems and methods are provided in which a computer (the fare construction computer systemxe2x80x9d) is programmed to construct travel fares in conformance with recognized industry rules by building matrices of fare components for travel between two market areas, one market area being an origin market area, and the second market area being a destination market area. The matrices are built in such a way that the matrices can be combined in such a way that the travel fares between the two market areas are constructed.
The terms xe2x80x9cprogramxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cprogrammedxe2x80x9d as used here include the use of application software instructions to direct the way in which a computer processes information and further includes all other ways in which a computer is instructed to process information, including among other ways: hardware configuration, and installing firmware in the computer""s microprocessor
One or more users have access to personal computers, workstations, or the like, which are equipped with a display monitor and a user input device such as a keyboard, mouse, track-ball, voice command, touch screen, touch pad, and all other user input devices. Through the interactive online display, and using the user input device, the user accesses the fare construction computer system which is programmed to construct fares according to the invention as described herein.
The user specifies an origin and a destination market area, each market area consisting of one or more cities. The fare construction computer system is programmed to accept the user""s market area request and from that request to access a database of market points. From the database of market points, the fare construction computer system creates a list of all origin cities and all destination cities in the user-specified market area request. The fare construction computer system further creates a market list of all possible origin-destination combinations.
The fare construction computer system accesses one or more databases containing fare components. The fare construction computer system analyzes the fare component database(s) to determine all of the travel fare components that describe travel between the origin cities and the destination cities in the market list.
According to one aspect of the invention, the Matrix Method of Fare Categorization and Fare Construction, the fare construction computer system populates fare component data structures, such as matrices, with information about the appropriate travel fare components. The fare construction computer system then constructs permissible fares by combining the travel fare component matrices using high-speed computer computations.
According to an alternative aspect of the invention, the Direct Association Method of Fare Categorization and Fare Construction, the fare construction computer system directly associates travel fare components by linking combinable fare components using sophisticated data structures. Using the Direct Association Method, the fare construction computer system then constructs permissible fares by creating all possible combinations of the linked components.